


cold nose, warm heart

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Cold, Cooking, Eating, F/M, Film References, First Christmas, First Kiss, First Time, Flirting, Holidays, Humor, Safehouses, Sexual Content, Sexual Humor, The Retreat Safe House (Marvel), callbacks, thejcexchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 20:39:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9256070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: For #thejcexchange prompt: First Christmas together as a couple.  Also based on this moodboard: http://lastcenturykindagirl.tumblr.com/post/155546135564/for-missmusicaltardisthejcexchange





	

That, she thinks, is the last of them.

Setting up the final bug, she tugs on the line and is pulled upward, out of the warehouse through the ceiling.

They carefully come back out the way they got in, through the air conditioning vents.

It's like something right out of a spy movie.

A sad spy movie, where all the other spies are at home with their families, celebrating.

Her feet crunch on the snow as she lands to the ground outside the warehouse, her quick breaths hanging in the air.

Even their enemies are at home opening presents with their families, having a dinner, lighting fires.

That's the scariest part about their enemies, really. They're husbands and fathers and son and brothers. And you can't tell if they're a Watchdog just by looking at them.

All snug in their beds, stockings hung by the chimney with care-

She gives him a boost down as he lets go, sliding down the side of the building until he's beside her.

"Merry Christmas, Watchdogs," he chuckles. "Ya filthy animals."  Then sniffles against the cold, as the snow starts to come down again.

At least now, they don't have to worry about covering their tracks.

Coulson, though.

He's in a funny mood.

 

  
###

  
They stop at the convenience store before they get to the safehouse.

There's really no point heading back to the base in this snowstorm.

 _And_ it's nearly empty, she knows. Just a skeleton crew for the next two days.

Mack taking Elena to meet his family. May off to visit her parents (in succession). Simmons and Fitz in their first apartment together ( _not that she was expecting an invite_ ).

Plus, those decorations that Mace put up will still be there to remind her how they're all supposed to be _together_.

While she's standing near the register waiting for him, she notices the Twizzlers in a pack nearby and impulsively grabs them.

Coulson comes to stand next to her with a few objects in his basket.

She eyes them, making a mental checklist (cream, eggs, flour, powdered sugar, food coloring) and then blinks up at him.

"What?" he shrugs. "It's Christmas. You make Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve. At least my mom did."

The funny thing is, she had intended to plant the bugs on the Watchdogs alone. But he came around and figured her out and then sort of cheerfully invited himself along.

The safehouse was also his idea.

"Are we doing Christmas?" she asks suddenly. Another impulse.

"Sure," he nods, looking down into his basket, and then at hers. "Did you do Twizzlers on Christmas?"

Actually. She really did ,now that she thinks of it. It was one of those holiday crafts the nuns did to keep them busy. "I just need those tiny candy canes to finish them."

She spots them behind him on the shelf and brushes past him to grab a box. "Here they are."

"I see," he starts, like he's thinking. "Well, if we're doing Christmas...."

He comes over to stand next to her and looks at the garish, sparkling row of Christmas junk, and reaches out to rest his hand on a box of lights.

"I need these?"

Asked like a question, but it makes the corner of her mouth turn up, and then she smiles when he dumps them in his basket, committing to it.

"A few, at least," he breathes out, like he's happy and excited by the idea.

"Then you should get this," she reaches forward, tumping the bundle of silver tinsel into his basket.

"Ornaments?" he shrugs, a- _How could they forget that?_ -kind of shrug, and then picks up mini ornaments and puts them in her basket.

"Don't look," she tells him, then turns him by the shoulder with her hand. "You'll spoil the surprise."

"I thought we agreed no presents this year," he says, playing right along, when she walks by him suddenly to the register.

"I lied!" she calls back.

 

 

###

  
This safehouse doesn't seem like it's been used in awhile.

There are some basic things here, which is good, unless they're going to survive off cookies and candies for the next two days.

The heater works well enough. Warm water in the bathroom.

After they're settled in, he takes off his jacket, his gloves, his hat, starts pulling things together to make his cookies.

He even got the cheap plastic cookie cutters in Christmas shapes to go with.

She holds one up, a little reindeer, and stares at him through it.

"This was something you did with your mom?"

"Yeah," he says, finding a bowl in one of the cabinets and starting to mix things together.

"I guess I'll put the tree up," she tells him, as she takes the string lights out of their boxes and then snaps the plastic holding the tinsel together.

His eyes are on her as she takes the handful with her to the wall and opens the box of tacks and starts to space them out, pressing them into the wall in a pattern.

"That's really clever," he smiles, as she starts to wrap the wiring around the tacks back and forth, weaving the tinsel in.

She finally plugs it in just as he gets the cookies into the oven, and he comes to stand beside her to look at the makeshift tree lit up on the wall.

"Turn out the lights for a moment," she says.

"I still have to wrap your present," he replies, clicking off the lights, looking over her face while they talk. The tiny lights are making him glow with colors.

"Me too."

She can't even remember the last time she had a Christmas. It's been.... _yeah_....that long. Maybe it's the same for him?

There's this warm feeling she has, standing here with him, in this dingy safehouse.

It's hard to put a name to it.

"I still have to frost my cookies," he tells her, in a low, quiet voice. It makes her laugh suddenly. It sounded _way_ too sexy.

It earns her a smile with teeth and all, and he looks a little perplexed, but more curious that he's made her laugh than anything.

She also can't remember the last time they were alone like this. For this long.

Or if this is kind of a thing they've both avoided, for one reason or another.

"You have to have frosting on your cookies," he explains, as she looks past his shoulder in a blink, staring at the bed.

"You go frost your cookies," she orders him, with a friendly pat to the shoulder. "And I'll finish decorating."

She waits until he's back in the kitchen, sliding the oven mitt on before she lets the quiet sigh escape her.

 

  
###

  
"You learned to do this at St. Agnes?" he asks, holding up the little box-thing made of woven Twizzlers, with seeming amazement.

"Well..." she says, with a humble roll of her eyes. "Yes."

"This is so cool!" he says, to her, as she reaches for another cookie and takes a bite.

He stops for a moment and stares at the plate with the pattern that's probably as old as he is.

"You have to leave some for Santa," he tells her. Dead serious.

"Santa?" she asks, with a raise of her eyebrows.

"Yes," he shakes his head, then his eyes go wide. "Did they allow Santa at St. Agnes or-"

"St. Nick," she closes her eyes briefly, knowingly. "Yes, Coulson. We got St. Nick, don't worry about the orphans."

She opens her eyes to see him staring at her with a slightly appalled expression.

"I promise, _okay_?" she laughs, touching his arm.

He huffs a little and then goes back to his box. "So, do I eat my way through this, or-"

"You can try, I guess, but since you've eaten half a dozen cookies, I wouldn't recommend it."

Puzzling through it for a moment, he finally finds the corner and pulls it apart as it starts to unravel.

Then a huge smile, with him holding up the black pair of socks with the Christmas print on them.

"Socks. _So perfect_. Here. Open yours."

Handing her the plastic bag that they carried everything here in, a bow of some kind tied at the top, she pulls it apart impatiently and then grins, lifting out the gift.

"You totally peeked!" she accuses, holding up the red Christmas socks in front of her.

"No I didn't!" he chuckles, holding up his black socks next to hers. "I kind of like the red ones, though..."

She puts them out of his reach and then sets her feet out in front of her.

"You're going to put them on now? he asks, staring down at her black painted toenails next to his knee.

"Yes. My feet are cold," she tells him, wiggling her toes. "Feel."

He reaches out a hand, and touches his thumb to the pad of her foot, putting his fingers around her toes.

"They are cold," he agrees, trying to warm them up.

 

 

###

  
"We kind of match."

His black-clad feet are propped next to her red ones on the coffee table, as he pulls the blanket over them.

They both stare at their feet next to each other, poking out of the other side.

"Great minds think alike," she starts, and then pushes her toes up against his.

For some reason, it sets off the memory in her mind of when he'd left her at the Retreat. And promised to come back in a few days.

That it would've been like this, if that had been allowed to happen. If so many other things hadn't gotten in the way.

"Does SHIELD still have the Retreat?" she asks him, setting down the laptop in her hand. Forgetting Christmas movie-watching for the moment.

"It's really Fury's," he answers, then turns to meet her eyes. "It's still there."

"Right where we left it."

Where they left off. And if she had to pinpoint a moment in time. When things changed so fast, they could only adapt.

"I would've come back," he tells her, like he's trying to apologize. "I tried to find you."

He's saying it like there's actually something to apologize for, but there's not. She's just now figuring this all out.

"I'm here. _Now_ ," she tries to explain, wondering if it will only make sense to her." I came back."

"You did."

And she thinks she knows the moment when he understands, the way his eyes widen and then turn shiny.

"I came back for you."

Reaching for her, he wraps her in a hug, pressing his face against the side of hers. She missed this. So much.

His fingers are still on her arm as he pulls back, like he's not ready to let go.

So, she reaches for his face, brushing her fingers along the stubble forming on his jaw. Hesitating, then drawing her thumb along his bottom lip.

"Your fingers are cold," he says, moving his lips, pressing them, warm, against her hand.

Almost a kiss.

A flicker of movement between their eyes and mouths, and then they're together again, but his hands are skimming down her waist, circling her hips as she moves underneath the blanket to cover her body over his.

Kisses eager and thoughtful, and she only has so much patience left. She thinks about opening the present earlier.

Then he slows their kiss down, pulling on her lower lip, gentle hands, warm and wide underneath her flannel shirt, moving down her back to feel along all of her curves. Like he's memorizing them.

She pulls away to look down at him, watching her, his fingers tangling through her hair, as his mouth finds a new part of her to kiss, his prosthetic hand twisting to work her jeans apart, pulling at the zipper.

When he drops his fingers from her face to press between her legs, against her underwear, it's so good, so warm. Everything is so warm, and safe and nice.  She wants to be wrapped in it.

It takes almost nothing for him to make her come. It happens so easily it's almost a shock to her.

She feels naked, and buries her face into his neck, holding tightly to him, as his lips move along her temple and to her chin.

"You're hands aren't cold anymore," he smiles into her ear, his fingers finding hers and holding them.

"No," she smiles back.

 

 

###

  
She wakes up in tangle, hot underneath the blankets and Coulson.

His wonderfully hairy, possessive legs, holding her against him.

There's no way either of them slept that great on the couch, and she's not going to complain, but there's a perfectly good bed over there.

The morning light is filtering in and she closes the laptop on the coffee table. The movie is paused there for them to pick it back up later if they want.

"Phil?" she asks, testing it out, nuzzling her nose against his cheek.

He asked her to call him that, even though she can't help but think of him as 'Coulson'.

But he's had to remember a couple of names for her, so she thinks it's fair, all considered.

"Mmmm," he complains, with a little stretch, tightening his legs around her even more. " _Daisy_. Your nose is cold."

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, as he squints one eye at her, then takes her face in his hand to lean forward and kiss it. "Is that better?"

"Yes."

He sighs and then gives her a small frown. "Why are you trying to get up?"

"I was thinking about making breakfast," she mentions, drawing her fingers along his hip, up to his chest, as he puts his arm behind his head so she can have more access.

"In bed," she adds, then dangles a leg over his until it touches the floor and stands up off the couch.

He reaches for her and then lets his hand fall to the floor empty, with a heavy sigh.

She starts to walk through the safehouse, stepping over their clothing in her red socks.

Girl's gotta eat, she thinks, and then sees the empty plate of cookies, and shakes her head in disbelief and walks it back over to him.

"It looks like Santa came," she tells him teasingly, showing him the plate.

"Of course he did," he says with a smirk, pulling the blanket up to his nose. "He delivered my present early."

She starts to laugh and sets the plate down, letting him pull her back into his arms over the blanket.

"I'll make you breakfast, I promise," he tells her, skimming his hands down her back, drawing light circles over her bottom.

"Merry Christmas, Phil."

"C'mere," he says. "Your nose is cold."


End file.
